PJ dropped her half-eaten ice cream into the trash can. “Complications?”

“Yes, complications. Like this one we’re having right now.”

“I came in to drop off an invoice and have an ice cream bar. I didn’t leap on you or wear an I Love Asa Barrons button. You started this whatever-it-is you’re doing right now.”

This was not going the way he’d hoped.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

PJ drew a breath and fought her temper. She’d had such a weird day and decided to drop by Twisted Steel. No big, just a few minutes of fun, maybe tell Asa about how she’d just quit her job and then go about her business.

Instead he was talking about complications as if she didn’t want to keep this thing between them mellow in public, especially in a work setting.

And then, like a man, he doubled down. “You’re too young for me. I’m too old and jaded for you. We’re not right for one another for a host of reasons. But I like you. I like the work you do. I certainly like flirting with you and having you as a friend.”

She blinked, incredulous. This guy teased her for months. Flirted. Looked at her like he wanted to take a lick every time she was around. Ate her pussy in her bed before he fucked her. Three times.

“This is the hill you want to die on? Really? A we-can-be-just-friends speech?”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m not handling this right. It’s why I have the damned rule in the first place, to avoid this business. We were already friends, I like to think. It’s a this-is-why-we-can’t-fuck-anymore speech.”

This was so fucking dumb. If he wasn’t as hot and didn’t take up as much of her thoughts as he did, she would have stormed out.

He was being dumb.

“Okay, so I think it’s totally fair that you have this rule. It would have been better to have known before, but whatever. I do now. But why this assumption that I wouldn’t also want to keep the fact that we’re sleeping together private? It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re female. When you’re young it’s worse. I have to constantly overcome an assumption that I’m a spoiled, dumb, pretty but useless burden. Sort of like how you’re acting right now. I haven’t given you a single reason to think I’m going to boil a bunny or start sleeping on your porch and telling people we’re married.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, and she didn’t feel bad for agitating him. He was being a dingus.

“I like riding crops. I like to use them on the backs of a woman’s thighs and her ass. I like to flog her nipples and her pussy.”

She shivered, but not from horror. My.

“All right.” She held a finger up. “So can we admit I’ve disabused you of the other reasons you’ve tossed at me?”

He frowned, his dark brows pointing in a sharp V. His hair had started to come out of the tie holding it back from his face because he kept shoving his hand through it.

“I admit no such thing.”

She rolled her eyes and his brows flew up. “Oooh, are you mad at my impudence? You can say whatever you want, but I won those other arguments.”

She held a hand up and kept speaking. “You made that announcement about crops because you’ve concluded I wouldn’t like that? Or that I’d be shocked and run the other way?”

“Do you?”

“Like crops? I don’t know. I’ve never been cropped. Cropped? Is that what it’s called?”

“You’re killing me.”

“I’m killing all these dumb excuses. You’re calling a halt to this based on what, that I might not like it? I mean, look, if you don’t dig me that way, fine. But now you’re just throwing stuff at me and flailing around.”

“It’s not dumb. You’re too young. I’m thirty-seven years old. More than that, those were a really rough thirty-seven years. You’re not that.”

She stood. “So your cock is going to send me to dirty hell? Do I get a say in any of this, or have you already decided that a decade and some change makes such a difference I’d run screaming if you slapped my ass with a crop?”

“Your being younger is a reason. You don’t know what you like yet. Us working together is a reason. If it ended badly it would ruin our working relationship and our friendship.”

PJ grabbed her purse. “You know how you feel about the word ‘sketchy’? That’s how I feel about men explaining to me how I feel and what I believe. You’re full of excuses and they’re all bullshit. I’ve already made it clear I don’t play like that. Have a nice day, Asa.”

“Don’t leave it like this.” Asa blocked her way to the door. “One hundred percent truth. I do like you, PJ. I want us to continue being friends. I want you to continue doing work for us too.”

She grabbed the doorknob and pulled. “I’ll continue to do work for you.” She kept pulling because it gave her something to do other than cry or get even angrier.

“The rest?”

“I don’t know. But I do know if you don’t let me out of this room it won’t happen at all.”

He opened the door and she moved out to the hall. She’d planned a parting shot over her shoulder, but really she just wanted to go home. So she kept walking and hoped he appreciated looking at her ass, because he was a dumbshit who blew a chance to look his fill any time he liked.

PJ showed up at her sister’s door two hours later, once she knew Julie had gotten home. When Julie opened up, PJ shoved a six-pack and a bag full of burgers and rings at her sister.

“This appears to be more than just quitting your job. Come in and tell me.”

“Only if you tell me about what happened after I left.”

“Deal. Come on and let’s get these beers open and plates for our burgers.”

“I told you I slept with Asa Barrons.”

Her sister raised her beer. “You did indeed. Just from watching the two of you together that first night you met it was pretty clear you had the hot hot tinglies for each other.”

“See, what I love about you is that no one would ever guess you’d say this stuff just by looking at you. Anyway. After I left Colman I went home, dropped stuff off, changed clothes, and then thought, Hey, I’m going over to Twisted Steel to have ice cream and flirt with Asa.”

“Don’t even say he blew you off or I’m going to run him over with a tow truck.”

“I love you.” PJ hugged her sister tight and then gave her the story. “I was pretty much like, dude, we’ll keep it chill in public, but we can still have sex. I’d bat away one thing and he’d bring something else up.”

“Ew. Well, whatever. Better to know now than after a few more times with him when you’ve really started to like him. You can have sex with hot guys, PJ. Plenty of them around. You’re gorgeous, so that part is covered. If this guy wants to be a dick, who cares? His loss.”

PJ dunked an onion ring in some ranch dressing. “I’m just over it. People thinking that because I’m young I don’t know what I want. Or that because I’m female I don’t understand things. What even is that? Jay totally eats that shit up.”

Julie sighed, knowing PJ was still dealing with quitting her job too. “I don’t get it. To be honest, even if you weren’t my baby sister I’d have supported your plan. It’s economically clever. Nimble. Fee? Well, he’s just foolish and so desperately freaked out that he’s not very smart. He blocks you because you’re smarter as well as totally full of girl cooties. He manipulates Jay because he’s got Dad’s ear and Jay has the biggest daddy issues of us all. Jay is going to do whatever he thinks Dad will give him a Scooby snack for.”

“I’d like a freaking Scooby snack sometimes, you know? Why does it feel like I’m never going to get any of Dad’s time and respect?”

“I don’t know what his problem is.”

“I know it took me a while to find a direction. I understand it takes time to prove myself. But it just… it’s never felt like he liked me very much. Oh sure, he loves me because I’m his kid and he’s not a Sith Lord. But I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anything I can do to satisfy him. It’s not like he ever said anything about my sales record either.”